Introduction: Star Alliance To South Africa

In the interest of full disclosure, One Mile At A Time earns a referral bonus for anyone that’s approved through some of the below links. These are the best publicly available offers that we have found for each card. Please check out our advertiser policy for further details about the partners we work with. Thanks for your support!

Welcome to the trip report for the journey I just finished up, where I traveled on Air Canada and South African Airways, and stayed at three Starwood properties between Vancouver and Cape Town. On top of that, I got to visit a fantastic city for my first time as an adult (the last time I was in Cape Town was about 15 years ago).

I was excited about South African Airways because they’re one of the best ways to get to South Africa, so I was curious how their product was. After all, they’re not an airline which has to be especially competitive, given that they more or less have a monopoly out of South Africa.

Before booking I tweaked the routing to get the best planes possible, and ended up ticketing the following:

As you’ll probably know based on my posts the past several days, the flights I actually took ended up being a bit different from what I booked, due to a flight cancelation and a subsequent overbooking, though I’ll cover the details of that in the upcoming trip report installments.

Booking the hotels

For this trip I’d need four hotel nights in Cape Town, and one night in Vancouver near the airport in both directions.

The nightly rate was 3,300ZAR per night, which is ~210USD per night. That was before getting the fourth night free, which basically lowered my out of pocket to ~160USD per night.

As a point of comparison, this is a Category 4 Starwood property, meaning a free night redemption would have cost 10,000 Starpoints, or a Cash & Points booking would have cost 5,000 Starpoints plus $75. Given that I value Starpoints at 2.2 cents each, paying cash seemed like the best value.

For my two nights in Vancouver (one in each direction), I figured I’d try two different Starwood airport hotels.

Bottom line

While I’m extremely tired from the trip (I’m actually publishing this live from my Vancouver to Los Angeles flight which rounds out the trip), I had a heck of a time. I enjoyed Cape Town immensely, and was also thrilled to experience Air Canada and South African Airways business class. I also enjoyed visiting various lounges enroute, which in some cases greatly exceeded my expectations, and in other cases left me disappointed.

In 2014 I first wrote about Baltia Air Lines, which is America’s oldest startup airline. They’ve been in “business” for 27 years, except they’ve never actually flown a commercial flight, despite having owned a 747-200 for over 20 years (which they finally…

I booked the Four Points by Sheraton Vancouver Airport both because it was the cheapest Starwood hotel near Vancouver Airport, and also because it would finally allow me to try a Four Points. While I'm an SPG loyalist, I've actually never stayed at a…

More from One Mile at a Time

It's no secret that some countries make it especially lucrative to invest by offering fast tracks to citizenship either through buying property or living in the country for a minimal amount of time. One of the countries that consistently ranks near the…

In the last installment I reviewed the Singapore Airlines first class lounge that I had access to, and in this installment I wanted to look at the Singapore Airlines business class lounge, which can be accessed by Star Alliance business class and Star…

Last month it was announced that JetBlue and Amazon will be scaling back their partnership as of March 27, 2018. Up until now it has been possible to earn three JetBlue TrueBlue points per dollar spent on Amazon, either when shopping on a JetBlue flight…

In the last installment I mentioned how I ended up using the Air New Zealand Lounge Sydney Airport first. That's because the Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge doesn't correctly publish their opening times -- the Singapore Airlines website suggests…

Aeroplan miles are often touted as an attractive redemption option for intra-Canada flights, domestic U.S. travel on Star Alliance partner United, and for reasonable cost Star Alliance business class flights to Europe. Those are all fine uses; just make…

I spent just one night in Sydney, and decided to head to the airport really early the next morning, even though my flight was just at 12:15PM. That's because I wanted to review the Star Alliance lounges at the airport, and I always feel more comfortable…

About luckyBen Schlappig (aka Lucky) is a travel consultant, blogger, and avid points collector.
He travels about 400,000 miles a year, primarily using miles and points to fund his first class experiences.
He chronicles his adventures, along with industry news, here at One Mile At A Time.

Regarding Comments: The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

You haven’t looked at the route maps if you think that SAA has a monopoly out of South Africa, EVERYONE flies out of there. BA, Virgin, Emirates, Qatar, Turkish, Ethiopian, Kenyan, etc. Etihad, Delta, KLM, Air France, etc. etc. I live in DC and have a dozen different carriers to get be back to DC with only one stop.

If you meant traveling inside SA then SAA does have the monopoly (Comair operates too but barely), but otherwise South Africa is one of the best covered markets in Africa with carriers.

@ JJ – I think he said those that were based out of South Africa, in which SAA’s really the only “internationally known” airline that does. For example, if people have the choice between Cathay Pacific and South African, they’d probably go with SAA given Cathay Pacific is totally the cheapest airline in the world.

“I was excited about South African Airways because they’re one of the best ways to get to South Africa, so I was curious how their product was. After all, they’re not an airline which has to be especially competitive, given that they more or less have a monopoly out of South Africa.”

I take issue with this. SAA are nowhere near a monopoly operating in and out of South Africa. There are countless airlines operating in and out of South Africa, across all major alliances, as well as gulf carriers. As you flew via Europe to go to JNB, you could have easily used 15 or more different carriers to get into SA. Not quite the definition of a monopoly.

Hi,
Really enjoy your blogs and based in Vancouver, I was especially intrigued to read your local and Air Canada reviews. I wanted to ask how you got such a low fare for such a long J itinerary? Did you use a consolidator? Typically, from YVR, lowly premium Economy can cost well above $2,000 YVR-LHR and that’s a sale……….

Recent Trip Reports

In the last installment I reviewed the Singapore Airlines first class lounge that I had access to, and in this installment I wanted to look at the Singapore Airlines business class lounge, which can be accessed by Star Alliance business class and Star…

In the last installment I mentioned how I ended up using the Air New Zealand Lounge Sydney Airport first. That's because the Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge doesn't correctly publish their opening times -- the Singapore Airlines website suggests…

I spent just one night in Sydney, and decided to head to the airport really early the next morning, even though my flight was just at 12:15PM. That's because I wanted to review the Star Alliance lounges at the airport, and I always feel more comfortable…

Having flown Singapore's previous generation business class seat, I couldn't wait to see how their brand new business class seat compared. I boarded through the forward door of the upper deck, where I was immediately greeted by several crew members,…

Recent Posts

It's no secret that some countries make it especially lucrative to invest by offering fast tracks to citizenship either through buying property or living in the country for a minimal amount of time. One of the countries that consistently ranks near the…

In the last installment I reviewed the Singapore Airlines first class lounge that I had access to, and in this installment I wanted to look at the Singapore Airlines business class lounge, which can be accessed by Star Alliance business class and Star…

It's pretty normal for airlines to try to differentiate their onboard product, even if it's in economy. For example, earlier today I wrote about how Air France's new ad campaign focuses on how they offer free food, entertainment, and champagne in economy.…

I’m a points geek. There are few things that make me prouder than finally ticketing an exciting and complex award itinerary. After the initial excitement wears off, the next thing I always do is calculate the redemption value. Anything above 5 cents…

Meet The Team

One Mile at a Time is owned by PointsPros, Inc. This site is for entertainment purposes only. The owner of this site is not an investment advisor, financial planner, nor legal or tax professional and articles here are of an opinion and general nature and should not be relied upon for individual circumstances.

Advertiser Disclosure: Some links to credit cards and other products on this website will earn an affiliate commission. Outside of banner ads published through the Boarding Area network, this compensation does not impact how and where products appear on this site. While we do try to list all the best miles and points deals, the site does not include all card companies or credit card offers available in the marketplace. Please view our advertising policy page for additional details about our partners.

Editorial Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any entity mentioned herein. Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.